Progress Report

Little Brother:  Wow, time outs are doing wonders for this kid.  We've had lots of problems with disobedience, and though we tried several different discipline tactics nothing worked, until we discovered calling time outs "stuck" did the trick.  This kid does not like being stuck, in fact, "tuck" was one of his first words.  A minute or two "being stuck" for every act of disobedience/unkindness has made him much more compliant, and done wonders for my stress and frustration level, haha.  Now he follows directions much better, and is no longer hitting or biting poor Kiddo.  The throwing toys at Kiddo still happens, but is getting less frequent.

Not much to report when it comes to his speech, but wow, this kid is great at jumping. :)

Kiddo:  Hubster and I are amazed every day at the progress we see and hear.  Some of Kiddos words and phrases and SENTENCES, are getting longer, more complex, and clearer!  Other people are starting to be able to understand some of the things he says without me having to translate, who hoo!

Some of his newest phrases and funny things:

• Every night during bedtime prayers, I say "Thank you God for ____" and he fills in the blank.  He always starts it off by saying "Eesus!"  Sometimes he's thankful for Mommy and Daddy, sometimes brother, always his own name, and sometimes random things like books, eyes, church, etc.  This kid melts my heart with his prayers.
• He demanded "pee butta jeyee! (peanut butter and jelly sandwich) one day for lunch, and I kept telling him to wait, as I was busy doing something else.  After three times of this he comes up to me, holds up one hand, says "One pee butta" holds up the other hand "One jeyee!" and then claps his hands together.  Hubster and I just laughed.  Yes Kiddo, I know how to make a PB&J, but thanks for the reminder. ;)
• He plays hide n seek now!  He tells us who should count (usually he's the counter, occasionally I get the privilege of counting).  When it's his turn he covers his eyes, but peeks a tiny bit, counts to ten and then says "Readee naw!" and comes looking for us, and when he finds us, he tells us where we are, which has been great for teaching him prepositions, and just pure fun to interact with him in a new/social way.  If it's my turn to count, well I must admit, he's a terrible hider (hint: his favorite spot is face against the wall, in plain sight) and if I ask Little Brother "Where's Kiddo?" Kiddo'll jump out and say "Boo!"  Gotta teach him that just because he can't see us doesn't mean we can't see him, but we are thrilled at how quickly he caught on to the game and how often he requests to play "Dida Seech!"
• He is really into science.  He is fascinated by the whole digestion process (we hear "eat, tummy, poo poo!) a lot.  He loves dinosaurs, weather, space, etc.  The Magic School Bus has become his new favorite TV show, which reminds me of my own childhood.
• He calls Hubster's school (Hubster's currently going to grad school) Robot School, because one time Hubster said he goes to school to learn about robots and computers and Kiddo latched onto the robot idea.
• While in speech therapy, Ms. Blessing had him playing "Don't Spill the Beans".  For each word he said five times correctly, he got the bean.  Then Ms. Blessing decided to work on sounds, rather than words.  "Say pa!" she said.  "No pa, no pa!" Kiddo insisted, "No pa, bean!"  Yes Kiddo, you are right, it is not a pa, it is a bean.
• He is starting to say hi to other people when they say hi to him!  This is huge peeps.  He plays well with other kids, but has never really interacted with them verbally, but now he tells them hi. :)
• He tries so hard to bribe me to read "boo boch!" (two books) instead of just one before bed.  One time he pulled out a copy of "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" and pointed to the number two.  "Boo ish!  Boo boch!" he insisted.  Such a smarty pants.
• He's started tattling on Little Brother.  He'll come up to me while I'm in the kitchen or doing laundry, or whatever.  "Botha do doy!" (Brother throw toy!) etc.  Or, he'll take matters into his own hands and tell Little Brother what to do.  "Botha no dutch!" (no touch!) or "Botha no do doy!" 

As for gross motor, we're starting to make a little bit of progress on pedaling a bicycle, whoo hoo!  He needs a little push to get going, and then can pedal for about three or four cycles before he loses the momentum.  He can go the length of our driveway no problem since it's on a very slight incline, but can't pedal it back up.  Definitely needs more strength before he can do it, but I think he has the motor planning down for it, which is huge.  Steering, though, is a different beast.  Steering requires lots of motor planning, which his brain has no ability to process when it's working so hard on pedaling.  But I'm hopeful that he'll be strong enough to be riding his bike over the summer. :)

His core is definitely getting stronger, as evidenced by this photo.  I was doing laundry, and came out to find he had taken all the cushions off the couch and was hanging out like this.  "Mommy, cook!" (Mommy look!)  He held this position for at least 5 minutes. :)

Hopefully I'll have lots of other progress to report next month, when both kiddos get to spend two weeks visiting with their cousins!  I can't wait. :)